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Friday, January 16, 2009

Some times humans really disgust me.

I want you to spend a few minutes looking into the face of Shaun Dykes before telling you his story.

Now I want to tell you why he's dead. Shaun was 17-years-old and had problems with depression. This doesn't surprise me. Shaun was also gay and all the evidence shows that gay teens are more likely to suffer depression and suicidal thoughts. This is especially true when they are surrounded by people who are anti-gay. One of the pernicious results of antigay bigotry, as pushed by fundamentalist Christians, is that gay teens often find the worst bigots are their own parents. While a black kid is not going to grow up and discover his parents are Klan members a very high percentage of gay kids are born into bigoted families -- usually because these demented individuals believe some deity has told them to be hateful.

Gay teens are more likely to face harassment at school and to encounter negative attitudes from school officials including teachers. Add to that the bullying they can encounter from the school morons and it is no surprise that they have a harder time coping with life in general.

Shaun had twice tried to end his life through overdosing and failed. In another depression, brought on from a break up with his boyfriend a few days earlier Shaun was on the roof of a shopping mall in Derby, England.

A trained negotiator from the police was talking to Shaun. But the locals gathered below and taunted the young teen urging him to jump.

Detective Inspector Barry Thacker said that every time the blood-thirsty mob would start screaming that Shaun would disengage and start counting down to jump. Thacker would have to try harder to get Shaun's attention and the boy would begin reconsidering his options. At one point Shaun was starting to reach for the officer to take his hand and come back to safety when some asshole started screaming "You're wasting taxpayers' money."

Thacker says with that taunt Shaun stood back up and said: "It's gone too far". He then jumped to his death.

What kind of scum was standing on the ground outside that shopping mall? I don't even know the words to describe the contempt I have for such human refuse who would urge a teenage boy to kill himself for their own amusement. These are the kind of scum that make me wish someone had taken a baseball bat to their empty little heads. It's disgusting.